


Collateral Damage: A Definition

by petroltogo



Series: Not Your Fragile Statue [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (sort of) Survivor's Guilt, Always a girl Tony, Angst, Antonia & Tiberius Friendship, Antonia Stark - Freeform, Dark, Female Tony Stark, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Eating Disorder, Mentions of attempted rape, Non-graphic Child Molestation, Non-graphic Sexual Child Abuse, Trauma, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 14:22:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12533580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: Long before she builds her first weapon, long before she wakes up to the taste of sand and betrayal on her lips, Antonia Stark learns what collateral damage really means. They say you never forget your first...Can be read as a standalone.





	Collateral Damage: A Definition

**Author's Note:**

> Please head the warnings. This isn't my usual style, in fact it contains topics I usually actively avoid, so please be careful and take care of yourself. If you don't want to read this story, don't. And just so you know, it's NOT necessary to read this fic to be able to follow the Antonia Stark (is better than you) 'verse.

_Once upon a time there was a girl with soft, brown curls and sharp eyes that saw too much. But she wasn’t important at all._

*

Antonia hates hospitals. Always has. There are no good memories attached to those tall buildings with the bright lights and air so clean it hurts to breathe.

Perhaps her dislike is unfair. A hospital is meant to be a place of healing after all. A refuge, soothing aches and easing pain. A warm welcome for the newly born, a safe haven for the elderly in need of care. But within these white halls and painted smiles lingers the shadow of her parents’ death, too fresh, too deeply imprinted into Antonia’s mind, and it burns through whatever light the building might have otherwise held.

The stark red colour of her mother’s favourite lipstick. The deepening creases around her fathers’ eyes.

 _I am so sorry for your loss_.

Antonia clenches her hands into fists, tighter and tighter until her fingers feel numb and her nails are pressed deep enough into her palms to _burn_. Until all she hears is the soft clack-clack of her heels against the floor.

She really, really hates hospitals.

But not coming wasn’t an option. Never has been.

*

_Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl, and they were the best of friends, and they promised each other that they would love each other forever, that nothing would ever tear them apart. But then a bad man came and took the girl to a land far away, where the boy could never reach her again._

_Yet the girl could not bear to leave her friend, so she tore off her shadow and sent it to him, so that forever a piece of her would remain with the boy. And the boy could not bear to lose his friend, so he searched for her everywhere, never abandoning his quest to find her once more. And though he always found her shadow lingering close by, he knew his friend too well to be appeased by a mere splinter of the whole._

_And so the girl remained with the boy but not, and the boy searched but never quite reached--neither together nor apart. For they rather broke themselves than their promise to each other._

_And break they did._

*

Room 056 is easily found. That isn’t the problem. The problem is, once Antonia has reached it, she finds herself frozen in place in the open doorway, unable to enter.

There are four beds inside, all of them occupied. A little girl lies in the one on the left, closest to the door. The cast wrapped around her leg leaves little to the imagination for why she is here. She’s focused on a puzzle on her bedside table, her parents on either side of her, talking quietly.

Next to her an older girl is texting like her life depends on it, apparently not at all discouraged by the IV attached to her wrist. Nor the three girls by her side playing cards, who appear to be waiting for her move for that matter. On the opposite side of the room a teenager with short, floppy hair has their head buried in a colourful set of pillows.

And finally, in the right corner, next to a large window, there is a young woman with soulful blue eyes and a smile to rival the sun on the most breathtaking summer days. The kind that hurts if you look at it directly.

She isn’t smiling now. Is sitting propped up in the bed instead, a pale, listless shade that lacks the vibrant sense of _life_ Antonia has always associated with her. She doesn’t look at the man sitting by her side, looks straight ahead at nothing in particular.

The man, a familiar sight of well-worn leather and inky black hair, is staring at his hands, absently playing with a pack of cigarettes. He looks real, from the dirty sneakers to the silver stud adorning his left eyebrow, from those intelligent eyes to the wicked smirk curling around his mouth even now, like a lazy cat stretching in the afternoon sunlight.

Compared to him, solid and _present_ , the blonde woman appears--washed out. Like a ghost that has forgotten to move on to the afterlife. And for a brief moment Antonia can’t help but wonder if the only thing that makes her real is the man by her side.

The thought sends an uneasy shiver down her spine, even though Antonia knows better.

When the man leans forward and asks a question too quiet for Antonia to catch, she isn’t surprised to see the woman slowly turn towards him. To see her respond, fully aware, open and trusting, like she always is. Neither is Antonia surprised to watch her smile a smile a couple of shades too dull to burn, and somehow that hurts worse than the brightness ever did.

The little girl’s mother is sending her a curious look. Antonia knows she should move, either to leave or to enter, but her legs refuse to cooperate.

The truth is, she isn’t ready to face them. The truth is, she doesn’t want to be here. The truth is, she had to see them. The truth is, it _hurts_.

( _The truth is, she has no place here, among them_.)

Because the young woman’s name is Julia and she doesn’t know Antonia. But a long time ago, Antonia knew her.

*

_Once upon a time there was a little girl who was always cold. One night, whilst waiting for her mother to pick her up, a boy approached her and offered her his clothes to keep her warm, even though he came from a poor family and did not have many in the first place._

_The little girl was delighted but couldn’t bring herself to take from him when he already had so little. So she asked for a hug instead and the little boy happily agreed and held her close until her mother came that evening, and for many evenings after._

_Until one night the little girl didn’t greet the boy with a smile, and when he offered her a hug like he always did, she shook her head and stood silently by his side, trembling in the cold._

_Another night came and went with the little girl refusing his offer, and then another, until seven nights had passed and the little boy’s worry grew. Until on the eighth day he arrived earlier than usual at their meeting place, just in time to watch a man with shadowed eyes talking with the little girl. And when the man laid a hand on the girl’s shoulder, the little boy could have sworn the fingers, for a brief second, became claws burying themselves deep within her flesh._

_The little girl didn’t say anything and the man finally left, two hands and no claws, and the boy thought for a moment that surely he must have been seeing things._

_Then the little girl turned to look at him and he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks._

_“He took your hug,” she whispered, hands shaking harder than ever before. “He--he didn’t give it back.”_

_The little boy wanted to reach out and hug her so badly, but all the little girl said was, “I don’t have another hug left to give,” and so he didn’t._

_Years passed and though the little girl grew into a young woman, she always remained cold. Whenever the little boy, who was not so little anymore, saw her, he offered her a hug and she denied him._

_It was during one terribly cold winter night, when the girl shook so hard her figure blurred before his eyes and still she refused his offered hug, that the boy remembered another offer he once made and he handed her his thick, woollen overcoat, for he had a spare at home. The girl accepted his offer gladly, and from this day on, she was never seen without it._

_And though the sadness didn’t fully leave her eyes, the little girl was never cold again._

*

Antonia is sitting on Ty’s kitchen counter, half a bowl of cornflakes in her lap that have gone all soggy in the milk, making silly faces at Ty’s back when the news hit.

She doesn’t need to listen to the news speaker drown on and on about the _horrifying details the police have managed to uncover_ or the _on-going search for other victims_. She doesn’t have to buy the newspapers, doesn’t have to comb through article after article. She already knows what they’re gonna say.

( _But she does it anyway_.)

It will be such a _scandal_. _Nobody_ would have ever thought this man capable of such _hideous crimes_. He always seemed so _normal_ , they will say. No one suspected _anything_ for years, the papers will announce. It’s such a _shock_ , so _unexpected_ , and terrible of course.

It’s the same story they always tell. The same god damn story. Every single time. The only thing that changes are the names, the faces, the numbers. But the story is always the same.

 _It’s a buck load of bullshit, is what it is_ , Antonia thinks with a twisted grin years too bitter for her face. There is criminals and then there is predators, and it’s a difference that _matters_.

Predators don’t just wake up one day and decide they are going on a hunt. They don’t just show up one day without warning, people just don’t bother watching for the signs. Because there are always signs.

Antonia should know, she’s dealt with enough of them. Hands that wander too far no matter how often you push them away. Refusals that go unheard. Pushes and shoves for more, more, more, like a two year old toddler who is told ‘no’ for the first time in its life, tantrum included.

She grits her teeth.

Saying ‘ _We never suspected a thing_ ’ is so much easier than admitting that ‘ _Well, there was something odd about him I never could put my finger on_ ’. Because ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is innocence. Ignorance is absolution.

After all, if you had your suspicions, why didn’t you act on them? Why didn’t you do something? Maybe if you had--

“Antonia?”

The question--sharp, impatient, entitled--snaps Antonia out of the foggy mess her mind has turned into, if only because Ty doesn’t usually call her by her full name.

He’s watching her from across the room, a cool gaze that sees more than she’s often comfortable with. It makes her hyper-aware of the way her hands have clenched around the bowl in her lap, so tense it’s painful, of the dull ache in her jaw from how hard she’s been gritting her teeth.

She forces her muscles to relax, but of course that does nothing to disperse Tiberius’ interest.

“You’re upset,” Ty states, in that unconcerned way of his that is as close to a worrying mother hen as Ty ever gets.

( _Save that one time, back when she was fifteen and so damn stupid. But they don’t talk about that_.)

“It’s nothing.”

As far as lies go, she could have done better. Except she couldn’t have. Not really. Not with her eyes once more fixated on the TV screen. Not whilst looking at the picture of a completely ordinary looking Aaron Thorne, age 37, chemistry teacher, who’s got a forgettable face and warm eyes and--

Antonia swallows the taste of bile down, resolutely turns her back. ( _Old habits die hard, don’t they?_ ) Drowns out the words of the commentator. It’s not like she doesn’t already know what he’s going to say. It’s always the same story with cases like these. This one isn’t going to be any different.

“I just really hate pedophiles,” she says with a thin smile and too much coldness. Waits for Ty to accept the weak excuse with a slow nod, like he _understands_ , when she really, really, really hopes he doesn’t.

Either way, they don’t talk about it.

Instead Ty changes the channel to a rerun of last Sunday’s football game and Antonia finishes her soggy breakfast, and that should have been the end of it.

That was three years ago.

*

_Once upon a time there was a young man who made the most beautiful dolls in the entire country. He would work for days, sometimes for months, on his creations until he deemed them flawless, and he loved each and every one of them dearly._

_People would come from far away to admire his work. Many offered him gold and diamonds and other riches for one of the dolls. Sometimes the young man accepted, but there was one doll in particular he held too close to his heart to give her away. It was his best work, a face so life-like as to be assumed human on first glance, with sparkling eyes and a mischievous smile and the softest hair spun out of the finest strands._

_Unfortunately the doll’s beauty did not go unnoticed for long, and though it was widely known that the young man would refuse any price offered, many tried to tempt him with luxuries beyond his greatest dreams. Still the young man remained steadfast in his refusal._

_But eventually a customer tired of the young man’s rejections and decided to simply take the doll with him. Enraged the young man chased after the thief and though he had never fought before, his furious determination was enough to overwhelm the thief briefly, causing him to drop the doll and take flight._

_The young man did not bother to give chase, all his attention focused on the doll the thief had discarded so cruelly. And it broke his heart to see how much the fight had damaged his most precious creation, for the doll had been thrown onto uneven, stony ground, and its face had been shattered._

_Distraught the young man tried to remake the doll, to recreate her as she had once been. But every time he reached for the shards his hands began to shake until he cut himself bloody on the jagged edges, until eventually he was forced to give up trying._

_The young man went back to creating new dolls instead, and though he poured his heart and soul into them like he always did, none could ever match the broken doll’s former beauty. And though he could not fix her, he kept her by his side, always, right in the centre of his collection, for though she was broken beyond repair she was still the most precious of all his creations._

*

The sorry excuse that passes as coffee in the hospital’s cafeteria does little to distract Antonia from the turmoil inside her mind. It feels like she’s running away again. ( _She is._ ) Too much of a coward to face Julia and Ian.

( _And Gem. God,_ Gem.)

She takes another sip from her cup, just to have something to focus on. Something that isn’t a ten year old Julia with golden hair and sky blue eyes and a beatific smile as bright as the sun. Something that isn’t a sweet girl, an innocent child, open and soft and trusting.

Antonia takes a deep breath to quell the rising nausea inside her. At least for the moment. There are memories hidden away in the depths of her mind that will always make her sick. And they should.

They should.

Truth is, Antonia should have never met any of them. She is two years older, was four grades above them back then. They never shared a class, barely passed each other in the hallway.

But. Everyone knew Julia. Sweet Julia who was too adorable, too damn pretty, too fucking friendly. Julia who welcomed everyone, who helped out just because she could, who laughed and invited and soothed. She was a goddamn Disney princess, always wanting to help and so painfully genuine about it, and Antonia can’t think of a single person at that school who didn’t adore the girl to death.

She’d changed schools at thirteen, for many reasons. But even after she’d left, Antonia had kept an eye on her. Quietly. From afar. It was better that way.

( _Easier_.)

And yeah, maybe she had been a bit enamoured with Julia. The girl had just been too nice for her own good. Antonia had wanted to make sure--anyway.

It had been a surprise to find out that Ian and Julia got together sometime during their junior year. And at the same time not.

A bittersweet smile hushes over Antonia’s lips as she remembers the first time she heard of it. Heard that the brash, rebellious jackass with the leather obsession and love for ink and the sheltered sweetheart with the 4.0 GP had fallen in love.

 _Like a freaking High School movie_ , she remembers thinking with hysterical amusement. _It’s such a damn stereotype_.

It shouldn’t have worked out in real life. But apparently the power of true love is all-consuming because here they are, ten years later, and the Golden Couple is still going as strong as ever, if the way Ian clings to Julia’s side is any indication.

Back then Antonia had cautiously taken the relationship as a good sign. She had assumed it meant they had finally begun to heal. To move on. She had hoped--

( _lied to herself until the lies became plausible through sheer repetition, denied all evidence to the contrary, indulged in wilful blindness because anything, anything was better than the truth--_ )

She knows better now. ( _Always did_.)

Because Julia always wanted to help to the best of her abilities, but there was _no_ line she wouldn’t cross for Gem. Because there was nothing, _nothing_ , Ian wouldn’t do for Gem. Because the only thing Julia and Ian had had in common for the longest time, had been the girl they both loved unconditionally. The girl that couldn’t--wouldn’t--love them back.

Antonia has dealt with weapons all her life, but she has never seen anything as volatile and destructive as pure, selfless love gone wrong.

( _And it’s not blood but it coats her hands--damns her--all the same_.)

*

_Once upon a time there was a girl with soft, brown curls and sharp eyes and though she was young in years, she knew more than others many times her senior._

_Blessed with a clarity of mind, she opened her eyes and she saw. Saw secrets and wishes and hopes and desires. She focused on her ears and she heard. Heard promises and lies and hidden meaning and honesty. She observed from afar and she understood. Understood right and wrong and good and bad._

_But when the time came for the girl to pass on what she had learned she faltered, caught up in_ knowing _until she forgot to_ do _. And though her mind was clearer than any other, madness followed in her every step, to one day reach her, for the judgement she refused to share with the world weighted too heavily on her soul._

*

The funny thing, Antonia knows, is that it should be over.

Hell, it should have been over when she was thirteen and ran, as far away as she could get. Not in the literal sense, thankfully. She had been able to convince her father to change schools, states even, due to a few happy coincidences and his surprisingly indulgent mood.

It would have been over, except she couldn’t quite let it go. She had to check up on a couple of them, Julia, a few girls from her own year, the teachers. Just because.

It should have been over when the chemistry teacher took a sabbatical and never returned. That had been the point of her check-ups, hadn’t it? To make certain that everyone was alright, that nothing bad happened to anyone.

It should have been over then.

It definitely should have been over when Julia and her friends, the youngest of the group Antonia had been keeping an eye on, graduated. They were all grown up now, free to live their lives however they wanted. There was no one to threaten them or to control them, there was nobody to protect them from. It should have been over then.

Three years ago, when the truth was finally out into the open, when the last of the ugly secrets had been dragged to light kicking and screaming, it should have been over then. Police sirens. A jury’s verdict. Acknowledgment and punishment. The truth shall set you free and all that.

What more is there left to do?

It’s been _fourteen years_.

And yet.

( _You can solve a crime. But you can’t end it_.)

*

_Once upon a time there was a bad man who hurt a little girl terribly. What he didn’t know was that the girl’s best friend watched them from the shadows. And when the boy came to comfort the girl after the bad man had finally left, the little girl made him promise to never tell anyone what he had seen. And the boy made the girl promise to never let anyone hurt her the way the bad man had._

_And they kept their word. But they never forgave each other. They never forgave themselves._

*

The empty cup slips from Antonia’s numb fingers and shatters on the floor. The young woman crossing the cafeteria doesn’t afford her more than a cursory glance, a glimmer of curiosity before she disappears in the endless hallways of the hospital.

Some of the other patrons stare a little longer but Antonia doesn’t pay them any mind.

She would recognise Gem anywhere.

She doesn’t know why her presence has caught her off-guard. Gem is Julia’s best friend, it’s to be expected that she is close by. But for all of Antonia’s interest in Julia, she hasn’t thought of Gem in years.

( _Focusing on Julia was always easier. Less direct. Less personal_.)

But there is no Julia without Gem, and Antonia-- She thought she was prepared for this. Thought after all these years she had finally come to terms with everything that had happened. Had made peace with the consequences of her actions.

( _She hasn’t. She never will._ )

When Antonia was eighteen, before the accident that tore her family apart, before the twenty-first birthday that never was, her father sat her down in his office and talked, open for perhaps the first time in her life, about the future of Stark Industries.

 _It’s not an easy market, not for anyone and especially not for a woman_ , he’d told her.

_SI serves this country, but Antonia. Arms dealing? It’s a nasty business through and through. You can keep it clean but you can’t keep it bloodless. We work to keep our men safe, to protect them. But we do it through destruction. And no matter how careful you are, no matter how well you do your job, there’s always gonna be collateral damage. If you’re serious about going into the family business, you’ll have to be prepared to handle that._

It was an important lesson. And though they had spent many hours discussing it, they had both been well aware that, at the end of the day it was the kind of lesson you didn’t learn through anything but experience.

_Actions have consequences. Intentional or not, they are your responsibility. When the time comes, will you be prepared to shoulder them or will you break?_

It was one of many lessons her father had taught her. It was one of the few she had already learned on her own.

Antonia stares at the shards of the broken cup at her feet, unseeingly.

It hadn’t been blood on her hands that first time. It didn’t have to be.

( _You never forget your first_.)

*

_Once upon a time there was a star that shone brighter than all the other stars on the night sky. But unlike many of the other stars this one did not love the sky itself, nor did it adore the night. For it was too enamoured with the human race to pay much attention to the matters of the above._

_The humans though were often already asleep by the time the star got around to watch them. And so, in an effort to guard these tiny beings, to bring them light and watch over them, the star remained in place as the night faded and the day began._

_But though the star was the brightest of all stars its light could not compete with the brilliant sun, and though it shone and shone it was barely noticeable. By the time nightfall came, the poor star had exhausted itself, its light so dim, it could barely be seen amidst the others._

_And though the star loved lighting up the night’s sky, it wished to help the humans who needed light during the day more. And so it continued to shine unseen in the sun’s shadow, until even the stars themselves forgot that it had once been the brightest of them all._

*

Somehow Julia looks worse when she is asleep. Antonia is aware that she shouldn’t be standing here, watching the woman in her sleep. She shouldn’t even be here period--and if anyone asks, she never was--visiting hours are long over but. She had to see Julia.

( _She can’t face her._ )

And Julia looks--small. Pale. So damn _thin_. It’s painfully obvious why, in between all the big words--depression, suspected psychosis, PTSD--that get thrown around in her file the one thing all doctors immediately agreed on was the eating disorder.

For one absurd moment all Antonia wants to do is reach out, grab Julia’s bony shoulders and shake her until she finally starts eating again. It’s silly and won’t accomplish anything except scare the poor woman to death, but Antonia can’t help it.

( _She still remembers Emily’s words about how whenever Ian couldn’t afford to buy lunch, Julia would share hers with him, and how sweet and romantic it was. She wonders if that was how it started._ )

Antonia suppresses a frustrated sigh.

There is nothing for her to do here. No way she can help. She’s already covering the medical costs--not that Julia knows or will ever find out--but you can’t throw money at a mental illness and demand it go away. Which sucks.

She’s known that of course, but she still had to come. The moment she learnt that Julia had been admitted, she had known she would come. To see, with her own eyes, if nothing else. She owes them that.

Antonia can almost picture Rhodey’s displeased frown if he could hear her now. _This isn’t your fault_ , he would tell her, in that sharp, demanding way that other people--the ones who don’t know any better--would attribute to Ty instead of him.

And she would want to believe him, knows on some level he is telling the truth because it’s Rhodey and Rhodey would never lie to her. She is only human, and she isn’t responsible for anyone’s mental health except her own. Antonia knows that.

She also knows it’s not quite that simple. Because she has combed through every piece of information on this case. The names of the victims were never made public. But Antonia knows.

( _Aria. Carmen. Melania. Sarah. Veronique. Tia. Christine. Gem_.)

( _They were the civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were the calculated risk that had to be taken. They were the body count one had to apologise for. The funerals one had to pay. They were the sacrifice, made in the hopes that the end result would be worth the price_.)

She knows trauma and she knows there could be any number of reasons for Julia’s breakdown ( _there aren’t, she checked_ ) and she knows it’s been years and she knows they should have gotten over it and she knows they haven’t.

Because that’s just it: Antonia always knew.

Mr Thorne never touched her but she _knew_.

And she _left_.

( _Predators don’t just come out of nowhere_.)

( _They don’t just disappear_.)

She was twelve, still just a child, still too smart for her own good, and she knew what was happening. She stared into the face of a man and all she saw was a monster. All she heard was wrong, wrong, wrong. She understood, even back then. Not everything, but enough.

She was twelve and she protected herself because that’s what Antonia does. ( _Because nobody else can be bothered to do it for her._ )

And that was all she had done. Saving herself.

It took the police eleven years to catch on.

( _Ian who didn’t finish high school because during his senior year he lost it, attacked a teacher and almost beat him unconscious. Julia who has been jumping from one therapist to another for years. Gem’s mother who still has to take pills to sleep through the night._ )

( _They are the ripple effects after the attack is already over. They are the dangerous chemicals that sicker into the groundwater. They are the poisonous fumes that spread sickness through the air. They are the family members of survivors who support as best as they can at their own expenses. They are the shock waves in the aftermath of a tragedy, spreading and spreading and spreading._ )

And it’s not her fault because Antonia didn’t touch any of them. Antonia didn’t create the monster. All she did was leave. ( _Too proud, too ashamed, too sure of herself, too scared, too tired, too self-centred, too far into denial to ask for help_.)

Leave and let him continue.

( _She is fifteen and storming into the closest police station, furious and raging, because those bastards dared to touch her, tried to rape her, and she won’t let that stand. She throws around money and connections and pressure shamelessly because she refuses to keep quiet about this, screams it from the top of her lungs if necessary, so that everyone will know, so they’ll have nowhere to hide._ )

( _She is twelve and she doesn’t_.)

It still hurts to see the consequences of her choices shoved into her face like this. It won’t ever not hurt. But facing them is the least--the only--thing she can do, has to do. This pain his hers to bear and she does. That’s why she came. That’s why she will always come.

Antonia understands collateral damage. She has for a very long time.

With one last glance at the woman sleeping fitfully on the bed, she turns on her heels and leaves.

*

_Once upon a time there was a girl with soft, brown curls and sharp eyes that saw too much. And she wasn’t important at all._

_But she could have been._

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on tumblr: [tonystarktogo](http://tonystarktogo.tumblr.com/).


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